Best Bets: Palmiers

I just discovered Wednesday the name of my favorite La Baguette pastry. It's a "palmier." You pronounce it "palm-ee-A."

Some people pronounce it "palm-EAR," said Gene Amagliani, manager of the La Baguette in Chickasaw Oaks Plaza. Some people just call it "elephant ear" or "butterfly," which are two good descriptions. It looks like two attached flat quater-inch-deep curly-cues.

The actual meaning is "palm leaf." I remember ordering them in the 1970s when La Baguette had a location in Overton Square. Amgliani said they've been selling palmiers since the bakery/restaurant opened in the mid-1970s in its original location in Chickasaw Oaks. There's another location with a reduced selection inside Gift Horse in Germantown. At one time, La Baguettes also were inside Stein Mart and the old Goldsmith's.

Palmiers are traditional French pastries. They're made by scratch at La Bagutte using sugar, flour and butter. They're "sweet, crunchy and delicious," Amagliani said.

But not "too sweet," said assistant manager Hadley Butler. It's a light pastry, he said, adding: "It's more than a cookie, but not a big old slice of cake."

To make them, you put butter between the layers of dough and roll and fold several times. They take about 20 minutes to bake.

I like the way you can break them into little strips of sweet, buttery pastry that are easier to eat than big sticky Danishes or doughnuts.

La Baguette also sells a palmier that includes cinnamon and raisins. Butler said he and a co-worker came up with that one while experimenting in the kitchen back in the early 1980s.

I hadn't eaten a palmier in a while, so eating one Tuesday afternoon reminded me of breakfasts at La Baguette and visiting other long-gone Overton Square institutions, including Burkle's Bakery, T.G.I. Friday's, Bombay Bicycle Club and the great Lafayette's Music Room.